Page 8 of The Roads We Follow

Mama crosses her arms and widens her stance in front of the bottom step of the bus she’s still guarding as the air conditioning blows her hair around her face. “Let me tell you three a thing or two about bad timing. Bad timing is when you’re having a contraction with your first baby mid-chorus of ‘Silent Night’ during a Christmas special on national television. Bad timing is when Hattie decided to chop off her bangs two minutes before she was supposed to walk the aisle as a flower girl in a destination wedding for a band member. Bad timing is when Raegan locked herself in George Strait’s cabana bathroom and we spent the whole night hollering her name only to find her passed out on the floor on top of herMagic Tree Housechapter books. Bad timing is what parenthood is made up of; this road trip is a choice. So I’m asking you to choose to make the timing work. For my sake.”

Hattie steps toward Mama. “I’ll go.”

Adele and I aren’t nearly as impulsive as our middle sister, though our reasons for hanging back are not the same. Adele has a corporate calendar she’ll need to contend with, as well as a husband and a college-age daughter to check on. Whereas the majority ofmyentire world is standing right here in this driveway—as long as you don’t count the characters who live inside a fictional world far away from this one. But they’ve never counted for much in this crowd anyway.

And maybe it’s for this reason more than any other that I step toward the gold tour bus. “I’m in, too.” I smile sweetly at my oldest sister. “Don’t worry, Adele. I’ll make sure to update our road trip on the shared family calendar ASAP.”

3

Micah

It’s been a week since my kid brother, Dr. Garrett Davenport, broke down the genetic findings of my blood test into bite-size chunks while we fished the Saint Joe River in north Idaho. And even still, I was banking on a lab error. There had to be some other less life-altering explanation for the results.Run it again, I’d told him as I’d cast,you know that can’t be right.

Without argument, Garrett had agreed.

But now, as I lean against the kitchen countertop in the house I grew up in, phone in hand, I know by the slow breath Garrett exhales before he speaks that the fear keeping me up at night is about to be realized.

“I’m sorry, Micah. I wanted there to be another explanation as much as you did. I ran the test multiple times. It’s confirmed.” Pause. Breath. “Frank Davenport is not a blood relation of yours.”

I’m not my father’s son.

Just like that, I’m teleported to another fishing trip only a couple weeks ago. Three months to the day we buried Mom, to be exact.The trip when Garrett first suggested we should both go in for a simple screening to determine if either of us showed any pre-markers of the kidney disease that took our mother. Only, instead of being given a clean bill of health, inconsistencies surfaced, and another round of tests was suggested.

One that has been run multiple times, according to my brother.

I’m not my father’s son.

Despite the number of workshop trainings I’ve taught and attended for the school district on how to reconstruct old narratives and create new neuropathways in the brain, there is no reframing technique in the world powerful enough to remove the barbed wire of betrayal slicing me open at present.

Garrett drops any trace of his doctorly voice in exchange for the brotherly tone I know best. “Where are you right now?”

“Mom and Dad’s.”

The tense silence that follows creates a boomerang exchange back to my ears. Our mom has been gone for three months, and now, according to a DNA test, my dad is ... not my dad.

“Okay, listen,” he says, “I’m going to cancel my last appointment at the hospital and meet you out there. I don’t think you should be alone.” My brother is a hero to many, myself included, but I don’t want to be rescued tonight. I need to think, to plan. I need to follow through on the reason I came. Now so more than ever.

“I appreciate that, Gar, really. But I’ll be fine.”

“Fineis a four-letter word. You’re the guy who taught me that, remember? Nobody is ever just fine.”

“You shouldn’t listen to everything I say.”

“You’re my big brother. It’s written into the bylaws of life.”

I know he’s only trying to lighten the mood, but suddenly I’m consumed by the second part of an equation I hadn’t put together until now. If our dad is not my blood relative, then Garrett is not my ... he’s not fully related to me, either.

We’re half brothers.

“Don’t cancel on your patient,” I repeat as a sledgehammer strikesmy temples. “It’s been a trying week.” Understatement. “I’m not planning on staying out here long.”

My gaze catches on the infamous houseplant we nicknamed Jumanji inside Mom’s office where I’ve been sorting a mountain of paperwork so Dad won’t have to when he returns home from Alaska.

“What about meeting up for a quick bite to eat, then? Or better yet, why don’t you come over tonight. You know Kacy would be happy to have you join us.”

“Kacy needs a break when you get home from work; twins are a four-handed job. Probably double that most days.” I pause, picturing the mischievous grins of my twin nieces. “I’ll call you tonight once I’m home. I don’t want you worrying about me.”

“What are you even doing over there?” Something close to suspicion laces his tone, but I pretend not to notice. “Dad said he put the garden sprinklers on automatic before he left, and the mail’s been stopped, right? I don’t blame you for wanting to search for answers wherever you can, but this isn’t your burden to bear alone, brother. I’m here, too.”

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